A Review of BTEM Analysis for Catalytic Studies and a Recent Homogeneous Catalytic Example

Abstract

In situ spectroscopic measurements of homogeneous catalytic reactions have become much more widely used. This is particularly true for FTIR, Raman, and NMR spectroscopic measurements. Although the instrumental and experimental advances have been quite noteworthy, less attention has been focused on the corresponding signal processing and numerical issues. In the present review, pure component spectral reconstruction using FTIR spectroscopy and band-target entropy minimization (BTEM) is emphasized. In a typical BTEM analysis, a set of hundreds or thousands of reaction spectra are acquired from a series of experimental runs and then analyzed together. The resulting set of pure component spectral estimates are obtained without any a priori information such as spectral libraries, and therefore, BTEM analysis is particularly suitable for the analysis of new reactions in exploratory studies. In the present review, the hydroformylation of alkenes using a mixed rhodium–rhenium carbonyl system is given as an example.